


over the threshold ;

by therentyoupay



Series: // [3]
Category: Frozen (2013), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: AU, Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, College, College AU, F/M, Modern AU, One Shot, Slice of Life, Smut, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 15:26:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3330815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therentyoupay/pseuds/therentyoupay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Want to come over?</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	over the threshold ;

**Author's Note:**

> _2/10/15_. so the backstory to this third (and just as unexpected) continuation to this college au series is that (a) i went to a college party last friday that i really should not have gone to and (b) i experienced my sixth snow day today in a matter of three weeks. relentless blizzards coupled with poor post-girls' night decisions leading to crazy-ass house parties that i don't have the patience for anymore ultimately result in... smut! 
> 
> you can chronicle the frequency/relative dates of my adventures with my still-in-college friends based on the posting dates of these one-shots. :P
> 
>  **beta'd** by the loveliest of lovelies, **alison** and **abby**.
> 
> also, just to be clear: this is the continuation of the [//](http://archiveofourown.org/series/181103) series, which includes (1) [on the sly at a stoplight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1803598) and (2) [down the long, winding hill](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2701265). I suppose it's not absolutely, utterly necessary to read this without having read either of those first, but then again, why wouldn't you read those first? :P

  


* * *

_**over the threshold ;** _

* * *

Elsa isn’t having a good time.

She hasn’t said anything, not that she would, but Jack can see it on her face, the way she gingerly sips from her Solo cup and watches the others hanging about the apartment. She didn’t bother to bring any of her usual drinks, just a quick splash of some liquor to add to her cup, and she’s still practically as stone-cold sober as she’d been when they’d arrived two hours ago. (Not that she’s the kind to actually get drunk at a party in the first place. But.) Jack hasn’t really been in the drinking mood since sometime in December, just before the break, and as a result hardly ever makes it past the land of Tipsy, but even just looking at Elsa being silently and subtly miserable in this crowded apartment is starting to make his slight buzz feel like a betrayal.

“Hey,” he nudges her, sometime after 1AM. “You wanna go?”

She does, but something is wrong with Anna tonight, and Jack doesn’t know enough of the story behind it to argue. Elsa’s sister is all bright smiles and false cheer and a little too much rum, and Jack is feeling very trapped and conflicted and caught in the middle, and doesn’t understand why.

“Don’t you have that proposal to review tomorrow?” he tries again a half hour later, when it’s clear that Elsa is only retreating even further into herself. They need to leave, and this seems like the perfect out. He’s not sure if he’s more surprised or relieved when she finally decides to take it.

The walk back to her apartment isn’t very far, but it feels like a lifetime. He can still hear the useless noise of too many people fitting in a crowded studio apartment, still feel the strange balmy heat of so many bodies so close together, of actually sweating on a cold night at the beginning of a northeastern February. They’d barely had any place to stand, let alone move, which was not the kind of scene that they usually found themselves in, but tonight was a night for supporting Anna, and Elsa did what she felt she had to in order to please her sister. Jack did what he always did, which revolved around a love for parties and crowds and drinking—or so he’d thought—and somewhere around midnight he’d realized that he didn’t really love it quite as much as he thought he did. Not long after that, he’d realized that he was actually there, in essence, for Elsa.

He isn’t sure how to feel about that.

They’re not holding hands as they walk, which Jack doesn’t like, and Jack doesn’t know what to do about. It’s not like they’re always holding hands—but they’re not _never_ holding hands, either. It’s confusing. This whole thing is confusing. It wouldn’t be so bad if Jack felt like he could reach out and take it either, but as usual, Jack is left following Elsa’s lead, and tonight she’s striding forward, only looking ahead, hands in her pockets. She is very, very quiet.

For once, Jack doesn’t try to break the silence.

It’s an eerie sort of thing, then, when they trek up the long, dark, stairway to her upper-level apartment, and the shut of the door behind him holds an abrupt and lingering sense of finality, an awkward ring of _domestic_. He barely has time to process it, let alone form an opinion on it, because the mood is deepened even further into confusing, tongue-tied territory when Elsa reaches for him, and clings. He hasn’t even taken his coat off yet.

It’s the first time they go to bed together without hooking up first, and Jack’s chest hurts even after he drifts off to sleep.

* * *

Jack questions the whole thing, however, when Elsa greets him the next morning by sucking him off and making him pancakes.

He doesn’t drink coffee, although Elsa sometimes does, so he makes it for her wordlessly while she flits about the kitchen in comfortable silence. Comfortable, of course, for _her_. Jack is merely riding out this stretch of the unknown by being observant, and quiet, and eating his breakfast gratefully.

“Did you want to work on your chemistry homework?” she asks, like she doesn’t mind taking another hour or two out of her busy Saturday morning to help a freshman with his basic chemistry. Like she isn’t still wearing only her underthings and his sweatshirt.

But he likes their routine, and he needs the help, and in the first half hour before they inevitably start making out, Elsa is a great teacher.

(Coincidentally, she’s still a great teacher even after that.

But anyway.)

Once Elsa starts getting into her usual groove—paperwork and disciplined focus and long periods of concentrated silence—Jack takes that as his cue to leave. The pants come back on, she offers him a snack for the road, and he kisses her goodbye as he heads for the sidewalk, alone.

His friendly dudebro of a roommate is watching TV and procrastinating when Jack arrives, and it’s mere seconds before the stale, sterile walls of his dorm room feel like they’re closing in. Jack leaves almost immediately for the library, feeling sick, and hating it.

* * *

He doesn’t really eat lunch with Kristoff and Anna, anymore.

Anna has been all over the place lately, feeling up and down and out as the second semester takes its toll, so more often than not it’s just been Jack and Kristoff at their table for three. Jack and Anna still talk, but she's always running around so much that she never seems to have the time, so Jack tries not to distract her. Kristoff is still the same as he’s always been, only slightly surlier, and Jack is getting tired of making conversation with someone who’s obviously got his head elsewhere.

So today Jack texts Kristoff early on and lets him know that he’s not gonna be able to make it to dinner, after all. It’s a shitty move, because Anna will be predictably absent—either bogged down with nursing homework with Rapunzel or fawning over Hans—which leaves Kristoff without anyone to eat with, but he can’t bring himself to feel too badly about it either. Kristoff has been hanging out more and more with those stoner dudes, and Jack subsequently has a hunch that he won’t actually be missed all that much, after all.

He and Rapunzel don’t share any more classes together, and they probably won’t for the rest of their college careers, but they still like their coffee shop ritual, and make a point of swinging by at least twice a week on the way to their next destinations. Today’s trip is the first time in a week that Jack has actually felt like himself.

“I’m worried about Anna,” is what she confides in him later, which brings the false sense of security crashing down. “This is the first time she’s been away from home for so long, and I think it’s really affecting her. She was so excited to go to college in the beginning, but she’s not used to the cold, and nursing is really hard work.” She’s not discrediting Anna’s capabilities, he knows, but it still feels weird to hear stuff like this when Anna’s not around to speak up for herself. (It’s a little, nagging feeling that always seems to surface in times like these; the tiny, subtle fear that comes out when Jack hears people talking about others behind their back—no matter what, or how, or whom—because of that little, persistent, mocking voice that reaches up and asks, _what are people saying about_ you _?_ )

“And Elsa is so busy,” is how Rapunzel concludes her declaration. “She loves Anna, but she can’t be there for her _all_ the time.”

The pit in Jack’s stomach hardens, and it stays like that all through the afternoon.

Tuesday is when Jack decides that something should probably change.

He doesn’t know what the hell is going on with Elsa, and the last thing he wants to do is go picking things apart, but since that first night after the ugly Christmas sweater party, he and Elsa haven’t discussed any of _this_ , on any level (including what _this_ is) and until recently, Jack hadn’t had any interest in changing that. For at least the first month, Jack was determined to simply count his lucky stars, lest he jinx whatever he had going for him. And then weeks passed, and the second semester got harder, and routines were made, and something shifted deep within his chest. Things changed.

(For him, at least.)

But it’s not like it matters. Even if stuff _has_ gotten a little more complicated, or if Jack has dug himself a hole too deep with no visible escape route, it doesn’t change the fact that Jack still has no idea exactly what it is that he wants. In life, or with his future, or any of it. And the hardest part is that, as an eighteen-year-old freshman in college, he’s not really _supposed_ to know all that, is he? It’s just a little hard to remember, sometimes.

Like when he’s eating dinner on a Saturday night at a nice apartment on the other side of town, one that Elsa made herself in her own kitchen—he helps, of course—but that’s the thing, isn’t it, because Elsa already has all her shit together and has actually learned how to really enjoy herself without worrying about all the superfluous shit, while he’s just there along for the ride and the food and the life wisdom between the hook-ups, and he’s just so fucking grateful that he’s even in this position, so in continual awe that a beautiful, driven, intelligent girl like her would even humor a guy like him, that he just keeps showing up at her doorstep like a moth to a flame, hoping that if he forces himself not to think about the particulars with the flame too much, that maybe it won’t wake up and realize what it’s been doing all along, won’t burn out and leave him in the dark.

(Sometimes, too, he hopes that it doesn’t end up burning him alive.

At this point, it’d only be his own damn fault.)

He keeps telling himself that he shouldn’t bring any of these weird thoughts up—shouldn’t even _dwell_ on them—because Elsa is obviously too busy to listen to his whinging uncertainties, has a hard enough time finding moments to support her beloved sister, so how the hell could he expect her to make more time for him and his insecurities? (And Jack doesn’t even know if he even really wants a relationship anyway, but thinking about all _this_ in those terms with those words feels way too presumptuous, so he slams them back down into the void.)

(And, like, isn’t the whole point of his appeal that he’s younger and still figuring things out and not interested in having serious conversations about the future?)

Decision: he isn’t going to mess around with anything he’s got going on with Elsa—is going to continue consciously making efforts not to question it, in fact—but there are other things that he can change, plenty of things, and he’s going to start doing something about them.

Jack texts Kristoff to join him for an impromptu trip of snowboarding that following Saturday, and the reply is a resounding _fuck, yes_. The response opens a floodgate that Jack hadn’t even been aware of, and the next thing he knows, Kristoff is texting obscenities and going off about _two-face Hans_ and _let’s get the fuck out of here, man_.

He goes through the next two days feeling significantly lighter. Jack doesn’t hear much from Elsa, but then, he usually doesn’t throughout the week, and he knows that the proposal is going to take up most of her time, anyway. He sends her a quick _good luck!_ message on Thursday morning and a stupid picture with a dumb pun in it, and looks forward to the slopes and mountains and eight straight hours of sheer, simple, snowy meditation. Every so often, he’ll be struck by the brief and nagging pang of _weekends are for Elsa_ , but she’s got a lot of work to do, so he’s sure that she’s not gonna miss him too much if he’s not around for one weekend. It’s only a day-trip, anyway.

It does not occur to him that Saturday is Valentine’s Day.

* * *

 _Hello,_ is her text message on Friday night, accompanied by a little smiley face that used to send his stomach into turmoil. It still does, but now it’s for completely different reasons. _What are you up to tomorrow? Want to have dinner?_

Jack stares at the text message for a long time before responding. At least three times, he considers calling the whole thing off and racing over to her apartment, thinks of her in her simple, lacy bras and the steaming cups of hot chocolate, the steamy make-outs on her living room couch, or her floor, or her bed, then decides that he needs this day as much for himself as he needs it for Kristoff, as he needs it for her, without her knowing anything about it.

 _Hey, sorry,_ he texts back, with as much genuine disappointment as he has resolve. _Kristoff and I are hitting the slopes tomorrow on a whim. I’ll be back tomorrow night, but it might be on the later side._

 _Oh_ , is what he reads, settling in for bed in his own, cramped dorm room. His bag is packed, sitting by the door, ready for the long bus ride to the nearest, biggest mountain. It feels awfully cold in his too-small dorm room, especially since his roommate is out and probably staying at his newest girlfriend’s place instead. It leaves a bitter, unreasonable taste in his mouth, and Jack refuses to consider the reasons why. Anyway. _Oh,_ is what he reads, sitting alone in his cold, empty dorm room, and, _All right. Maybe I’ll see you afterwards. Have fun_.

He doesn’t fall asleep for a while.

But then he and Kristoff are on a bus at the ass-crack of dawn, and the perfect combination of dark and cold and anticipation is enough to thrill him into alertness. Kristoff claims that he’s not a morning person, just a _creature of habit_ , but either way it makes for two very-awake passengers on a quiet bus full of drowsy people, and Jack and Kristoff can feel the anticipation rising all the way to the mountain.

They’re there even before the range opens, when the skies are still just a tiny bit dark, and Jack treats himself to a small cup of hot chocolate to get the morning started. It’s obviously not as good as the stuff from Elsa’s kitchen, because everything Elsa does is high-quality—even chocolate—but, you know, that’s okay.

It’s five hours of straight snowboarding before either of them even consider taking a lunch break. For the most part they ride up and board down together, alternating between companionable silence and random shit that only they would really find amusing, and not once do they mention either member from a set of very admirable sisters.

After lunch it’s another three hours, and it would have been more if the slopes weren’t closing so early. Jack briefly toys with the idea of suggesting that they find a cheap room in the lodge and get back out there in the morning, but he doesn’t really have the money for that kind of thing, and he knows that Kristoff doesn’t either. Coming here at all is enough of a splurge as it is.

His cheeks are probably permanently tinged, all wind-bitten and flushed, but Jack’s the kind of weirdo who likes stuff like that, who welcomes the rush of warmth from the bus heater specifically because it reminds him of just how cold he’d really been. He’s looking forward to a shower when he gets back, even if the hallways will be super crowded with people enjoying their Saturday night. (In a weird bout of self-reflection, Jack acknowledges that he doesn’t take as much pride out of it as he used to, out of walking past the busy common room in a t-shirt and pair of shorts with a towel and a bottle of shower gel, proudly _knowing_ that all their minds will inevitably flow into the logical realization that he’s off to shower, and further into the inevitable mental image of it, of him showering in one of these crappy shower stalls, naked.)

(He prefers showering at Elsa’s—or, more specifically, _with_ Elsa—even with only the one or two times he’s done it, but he’s still a freshman who hasn’t really yet earned his stripes for that kind of personal luxury, so he’s just gotta suck it up for now. He only has two or three months left in that dorm, anyway.)

_And then what?_

After an entire day of snowboarding, Jack can confidently declare that, for the moment, he simply doesn’t care.

* * *

He gets back around 9PM, and realizes that the dorm isn’t nearly as crowded as he might have thought.

It’s pretty quiet, in fact, as Jack lugs his gear down the familiar hallway, most of which is decked out in red paper hearts from some program the RA had done a week or so before. There’s a movie on in the lobby with a lot of people spread out like they’re in the middle of a slumber party, and the rest of the building is suspiciously quiet, with lots of doors closed.

His roommate is still gone, but that’s no surprise. His gear falls to the bed with a dissatisfying thud, and it’s only after he spends a good two minutes looking pointlessly around his room that he pulls out his phone, and texts Elsa.

 _Hey, just got back._ He means to send something else, too, but there’s a lot of loud giggling outside, which distracts him for no good reason at all. Everyone is acting so weird today.

 _Hey!_ Jack stares at her exclamation point too, when it pops up. Like it will tell him all of the universe’s secrets—or, more specifically, Elsa’s—and then feels his heart predictably begin to race when he reads, _Want to come over?_

 _How soon?_ He asks mostly out of politeness, because he’s already trading shit from his snowboarding haul for the usual overnight cache, and he supposes that he doesn’t really need to shower, anyway. (Briefly wonders if that will be gross, or not, and decides that he can probably use it as a great excuse to get Elsa to join him for one either way.)

 _As soon as you like,_ is her diplomatic answer, as per usual. Jack’s already walking out the door, bag slung over his shoulder. _Also, I can’t remember—do you drink wine?_

He doesn’t, but he most definitely will. Jack spots a few of his early-first-semester friends amongst the congregation in the lobby as he leaves and pointedly avoids eye contact. He’s never said as much, but by now they all probably know exactly where he’s going; Jack isn’t interested in confirming anything.

 _Sure,_ he replies agreeably, because he’s flexible, and grateful, and can’t enter a liquor store without a fake ID, which he most certainly does _not_ have. _What kinds?_

 _Enough to make myself look questionable,_ she teases, to which Jack simply huffs, heavy boots pounding the pavement as he starts the long trek. He considers hopping on the subway, because it's faster, but the walk helps him cut out some of the nerves, and the cold doesn't hurt, either. The sidewalk has also finally thawed enough to allow for actual walking again, but Jack almost misses the crunch of snow.

Jack looks down at his phone, briefly takes note of a couple kissing at a nearby bus stop, and the pieces click into place as he reads it, the simple question, _Do you prefer white or red?_

It's Valentine's Day.

 _I also have rosé,_ reads Jack, who has come to a complete and utter standstill, _if you prefer blush. ;)_

And it's amazing really, what the human body is capable of—the horror and mortification, guilt and embarrassment and arousal—all from a quick epiphany about a very particular date in the month of February. (And a winky face too, maybe, but that's just him being lame.)

Wait.

Is _this_ a date?

Is he walking to a date right now? (Does it count as a date if all they end up doing is what they normally do, if they watch movies in blanket forts that he claims she'll never be too old for, or if they bake brownies at 3AM because she has another grant to write? If they just sit around her apartment all day and read each other's textbooks half-naked between hook-ups? If he distracts her from his upcoming exams by going _down_?)

Is he seriously walking to Elsa's apartment on a Valentine's night, without knowing if this is a date, if she is expecting anything more than his unshowered, gift-less, clueless, late-ass self?

He should buy her flowers.

No. No, he shouldn't. One, because he doesn't even know if that's something she'd like—Anna, yes; Elsa, _who knows?_ —or if it'd be weird, or too much, because they aren't actually together, or whatever.

And two, because they're expensive.

(Jack isn’t really sure he can keep calling himself a hopeless romantic. Unless hopeless is akin to penniless. Or if _romantic_ actually translates to _cheap bastard_.)

Jack picks up his feet and starts walking, just a bit quicker.

It's almost surreal, how natural it feels to walk the path up to Elsa's front door, to reach for the buzzer without any conscious thought.

His chest is weirdly hollow as he climbs the steps to Elsa's apartment door, now in full worry-mode that he should have bought the damn flowers, that he should have showered at the damn dorm, that he shouldn't have spent the entire day out with Kristoff on a fucking mountain, that he should have been spending it with Elsa instead.

Worrying that she didn't exactly ask to spend the day with him either.

She's gorgeous when she opens the door, disarmingly so, but then it always feels like a smack to the face when she looks at him and smiles. Jack's mouth grins on its own, his brain has completely shut down—tight jeans; both hers, and now increasingly _his_ —and then he's stepping over the threshold, meandering forward as she steps aside to welcome him in and close the door behind him. He's covered in melting snow, he realizes, and making a mess of her floor.

He’s fumbling with the zipper when her tongue finds its way into his mouth, scraping under teeth and curling heat in his belly, and then she’s slowly pushing the coat from his shoulders, how does she do that.

"Good evening," he laugh-mumbles into her mouth, freeing his arm from a sleeve that wouldn't let go. "Sorry I'm late."

He'd meant to ask her how her day was, but whatever. Starting off with an apology, apparently. Great. Starting strong.

She kisses him again through a smile, which makes Jack feels flustered in a way it really shouldn't, because he's experienced so much more with her than just a kiss, has seen Elsa in a casual state of undress every weekend for the past month and a half, and he's seen exactly what kinds of glorious things she likes to do with that mouth, and evidently none of this matters, because Jack still can't get out his words when she pulls away to look at him. Fumbling fuck.

"I don't know if you're hungry," she says, half-pulling him further inside. "But Anna was over earlier and we baked some cookies. Did you eat dinner?"

If by _dinner_ she means three granola bars, an apple, and forgetting to eat his packed sandwich due to post-adrenaline nap on the bus, then yes.

"I could definitely go for some cookies," he grins and follows her into the kitchen. His stuff is right at home on the floor, and he knows his way around the apartment well, so he doesn't understand why it feels so stiff all of a sudden, like he doesn't know where he's supposed to stand. Jack reaches for a cookie off the plate and leans up against the counter while Elsa opens a bottle of wine, and tries to remember what the usual Jack would do.

He and Elsa would probably be making out, right now.

"How was skiing?" Elsa asks, turning back to look at him—grins slyly when she notices how guilelessly he'd been eyeing her ass in those jeans. "Or is it snowboarding?"

"I've never been skiing in my life, actually," Jack points out, fun fact of the day, and stuffs another cookie into his mouth before any other fun facts slip out, like, _hey—did'ja know its Valentine's Day?_

The conversation flows, even though Jack himself is stilted, and it doesn't really hurt when the wine is poured either. Elsa has the fancy glasses, but she picked up somewhere around January that those sort make him uncomfortable, so he's sipping red wine out of a regular ol' cup while she's holding onto one of those classy, stemless wine glass, even though he knows she hates what it does to the temperature and the flavor or something.

She keeps finding her way into his space—hips into hips as she returns the bottle-opener to the drawer at his side, mouth to mouth as she cuts him off mid-sentence over some answer to some question she'd asked him in the first place—but no matter how many times she comes and goes, Jack feels rooted to the spot. He laughs and talks and jokes and teases, but his hands are shaky, and his palms are sweating, and shit, he was supposed to angle for a shower.

Suddenly worries that it's rude. Suddenly worries that _everything_ is rude.

"Want to watch a movie?" she asks, and her eyes are a lot brighter than he remembers them being the last time. _Movie_ , of course, is still the shameless, transparent codeword for _let’s make out_ that it always is, and Jack is desperately in favor of this plan, so why the hell he feels so nervous is beyond him.

He manages to somehow finagle his Netflix account into putting on some cheap-ass, low-budget, probably-made-for-TV movie that Jack has never even heard of before in his life, but to be fair he also pushes the play button as Elsa trails open-mouthed kisses down the side of his neck, so chances are that he doesn't actually know the name of the movie, anyway.

She's on top of him before the title credits, and from there it's all hazy. Her ass is in his hands and through two pairs of jeans he can feel her heat, riding along his cock where it's pressed tight against his leg, while she grinds and he bucks and pulls her roughly against him. They aren't even taking off any clothes, which Jack doesn't actually mind, but at the same time, this friction is getting close to unbearable, and good fucking god, why is he thinking so much.

If Elsa notices, she definitely doesn't say anything; he's still hard as a rock, mental blocks aside, and her skin is so soft, and her mouth has this thing with his neck tonight, and he is so, so on board with that.

Jack pulls the sweater over her head and chokes on the kiss he has pressed against her mouth. He has never seen this bra before.

"I'll remember that," she teases fondly, taking note of his reaction, both his fumbling awe and his straining dick, and when Elsa breaks free to lower herself to his chest, to his hips, Jack's strangled groan is the most uninhibited display he has shown all evening.

But she stops just shy of his waist, kissing little trails along his abs as he stretches his head back over the armrest of her living room couch. His shirt is coming off in inches, and Jack is leaking pre-come all along the inner-seam of his jeans, which means that if he doesn't turn this around, he's not going to get much further.

He springs himself up to a sudden sitting position, dragging her up to meet his mouth, and Elsa accepts with surprising ease. She usually likes to run her mouth along his collarbones, or to drag her to teeth over his neck, but tonight she's kissing him as much as he's kissing her, and it's only when he eventually breaks apart to tear the rest of his sweat-soaked shirt over his head that he realizes how raw their mouths are, how incredibly red and swollen.

Jack catches a closer look as Elsa quickly leans down to kiss him again, takes stock of the pale fingers and smooth skin, the long braid and the lacy bra, the quiet moans and whimpers and hot, open mouths. Thinks that he shouldn't say anything, that he should let it alone; that he should let Elsa ride his dick and calm herself with his mouth, that he should lick and suck his way into her good graces as he usually does, head between her thighs; that now isn't the time, isn't the day, isn't the night—

Realizes that his chest still hurts.

“Jack?” she whispers, and he starts at the feel of cool fingers on his jaw. His eyes jerk toward hers, which is terrible, because that level of unguarded concern in her big, worried eyes is definitely guilt-inducing, and guilt just happens to be one of Jack’s most vulnerable weak-points. Hello, mood-killer.

Jack laughs, which startles her, but before she can get offended, he leans in and kisses her. Best to play it off, then.

“Sorry,” he mouths into her cheek and jaw, grinning as she squirms in his lap. (Remembers that fateful Sunday morning when he’d discovered that she was ticklish; she’d seemed just as surprised as he was.) Murmurs, into her ear, “I was thinking how your cookies could have used more chocolate.”

The slap to his shoulder is sharp, and so is the glare, but her eyes are keen and mischievous, and he doesn’t mind the pillow to the face when she curls back her lip and regally declares, “That is an unaccountable _lie_ , Jackson Overland; those cookies were perfect, and you are aware of it just as much as I.”

He takes another hit to the face, laughing, before he swoops in on her sides, fingers to her ribs, and then everything just deteriorates until they are tumbling the floor in outrageous giggles and yelps, with Jack taking the brunt of the impact with as much grace as he can muster. At least the pillows made it to the floor before they did.

“I think this calls for more wine,” Elsa announces blithely, once they’ve caught their breath. Jack tells himself that she really _is_ in a good mood today, that any moroseness he might have seen in her expression earlier is probably just a result of him projecting, that today is no different than any other day. Then he stands, and follows her.

It isn’t so hard to reach out now, what with so much bare skin on display, so Jack has no problem sliding himself over to stand behind Elsa as she pours them each another glass. Nor does he have any problem ignoring her meager protests about spilling, or shaking hands, when he nibbles the spot beneath her ear.

Jack doesn’t actually end up drinking any wine for quite a while, because the kitchen counter is far more interesting, especially when Elsa is on top of it.

Breathing heavily, Elsa eventually parts her lips from his, smiling down with an unreadable expression as she takes stock of the features on his face, and clenches her legs where they twine around his waist. Jack pitches forward into the counter, and Elsa laughs, just a little, and then she’s lifted clear off the counter altogether.

That’s when things seem to regain a bit more of their normalcy. Elsa insists on the wine and Jack insists on not letting her go, and so a game is created in which Elsa must carry both cups of wine and Jack must carry Elsa. Jack has never been more terrified of potential carpet-stains in his entire life, but Elsa laughs harder than he has ever heard her, and as soon as they are set gently onto the coffee table, he attacks.

From there it’s the creation of an impenetrable blanket-fortress, which actually just looks like a giant nest, and the replacing of the first crappy movie with a decent one, and more often than not, Jack has cookies stuffed in his mouth, and wine on his breath, and he doesn’t even know what time it is anymore, but Jack feels like he could live forever.

“What’s the verdict, then?” Elsa asks pleasantly, scrolling through his Netflix categories as she takes another sip of wine. She is sitting on the floor at the coffee table, still only wearing jeans and a bra, and Jack cannot complain. “Mindless sitcom, action/thriller, or romantic comedy?”

“What kind of action?” he asks, which may sound casual enough, if not for the way he rolls himself off his back and crawls the three inches it takes to settle his head in her lap; the kiss he presses to her stomach takes so long that her hand actually has to push him away so she can get a real answer, and by then it’s too late.

“I put on the first romantic comedy I found,” she leans down into his space, which can’t be comfortable, and Jack is going to give himself neck strain with how eagerly he is reaching his face in her direction, but in the end they kiss, lips meeting lips, and Elsa’s grin is sweet. “Hope your account preferences aren’t permanently skewed forever.”

“Um, excuse you,” Jack manages with as straight a face as possible, even though he is still at least halfway in her lap. “I am avid watcher of romantic comedies, thank you. There will be no skewing, as it were.”

“Must be why all your jokes are so cliche,” she mumbles, and then cries out with laughter as she is pinned to the floor.

“I beg your pardon,” he argues into her neck, grinning as she tries to bat away his hands. “That is hardly in the festive spirit.”

Elsa quirks a brow high. “Festive?” she asks.

Whoops.

“It’s chocolate and wine season,” is what he says, suddenly very aware of the fact that they are two people in close proximity, with very different goals and interests, and only half of their clothes. “Obviously,” he adds, for emphasis.

Elsa licks her lips, looking amused. There’s a movie playing in the background now, but Jack can’t be bothered to look at the screen. She hasn’t made any protests about the way he’s almost lying on top of her, the way that she has to twist her face to the side to look at him, head rolling on the hard floor.

“Are you enjoying your Valentine’s Day?” she asks him, and now it just sounds like she’s teasing him.

Jack darts a dry glance to her face, completely unsurprised by the sly twist to her lips. He’d call her out on her wily ways, honestly, if she weren’t so damn blunt.

“As a matter of fact, I am,” he announces glibly, slowly lowering his face to hers with _intent_. “Kristoff and I had a lovely time in the mountains today.”

The breath of laughter that escapes her sound suspiciously like _oh shut up_ and then Elsa reaches up and kisses him with the most peculiar expression on her face, curling her arms around his neck and dragging him closer with such an unexpected bout of warmth and affection in her touch that Jack’s heart stutters in his chest, and heat sears deep in his gut, and then he is gasping out of their kiss too soon and asking, “What is this?”

Elsa stills in his hold, below him on the floor. The warmth and openness that was in her expression just a few moments ago is gone, and Jack’s limbs go cold. He doesn’t regret asking, even if he regrets a lot of the circumstances surrounding it.

“Jack,” she begins, and it sounds like the start of an apology. “I don’t—”

“It’s fine,” he interrupts, and it’s both at once more gruff than he’d expected and actually a lot softer than he’d intended. It’s quiet to his ears, and sincere, and just the tiniest bit self-deprecating. His grin probably matches.

Elsa seems to be at a loss for words, which is new; Jack has learned over the last few months that although Elsa is often quiet, it’s not for lack of anything to _say_. She’s just putting her thoughts in order. Trying to figure out the best way to have her voice be heard.

Except for now, maybe.

“I’m serious,” Jack adds, cracking an artful smile. “I don’t really mind,” he assures her, and he lowers himself onto his elbows, trying to be playful, to bring back that feeling of light and easy. “Just curious.”

Elsa won’t believe him for a second, and Jack doesn’t really blame her, but he’s determined to let it slide, and she seems to sense this. It’s quiet for a long minute, and Jack lets it be quiet, lets Elsa steer their course and plays with her braid while he waits. Runs his fingertips gently over the scalloped edges of her lacy bra.

He can hear her thoughts even if she won’t voice them. _I’m graduating_ , her silence says, rich with an apology neither of them truly feel she is compelled to make. _You still have so much ahead of you_ , is what he also hears, but that’s the line of thought that makes him feel the most uncomfortable, especially since Elsa is not the kind to be condescending, and also because he can barely see what’s ahead him two days from now—let alone all the experiences Elsa thinks she sees for his future, without her. And then, a perfectly reasonable sort of question, _Where would we go?_

“I really like you.”

Jack glances up to her face, breaking his attention away from the softness of her breasts, of the light patterns he’s drawing over them with this fingertips. There’s a lot more to her words than just what she’s spoken, and a lot more in her expression than Jack feels like he is really all that ready to examine.

It’s here that Jack makes a decision: he can either keep playing it off, making excuses, use the same old quips and tricks that have gotten him out of (and into) trouble for as long as he can remember, the stuff that will make everyone focus on the smile and the grin, and not the person behind it.

Or he can choose not to.

He’s not entirely sure that it’s the best decision, even if it’s the right one, when he leans down and carefully presses a kiss to her lips by way of reply. _I don’t mind_ , he says, when his tongue touches hers. _This is fine_ , he breathes, when his fingers slip beneath the wire of her bra. He won’t ask again, and he won’t complain, and if it becomes too much, then—well.

He’ll figure it out.

The clasps of Elsa’s bra slide out easily through his fingertips, and then the bra falls away, sliding gently off her shoulders and down her arms as Jack kisses her mouth, kisses the very way she kisses him, and the bare skin of his chest slips easily over the exposed skin of hers, smooth and soft and warm. Jack’s fingers find the subtle indentations of her ribs, deftly curling his fingers around her side. He swipes a gentle thumb along the underside of one breast, light and soft and reverent, and when her breath hitches in her throat, Jack lowers his face to her chest, places tongue and lips to one hardened nipple, lavishing licks and kisses and the tiniest bit of teeth to the sound of Elsa’s breathless moans. A firm hand pushes at his temple, and he obeys, shifts his attention from one breast to the other, heat pooling in his gut, swelling in his cock.

He plays with the pebbled flesh of Elsa’s nipples as her fingernails bite into his scalp, as her wriggling and arching rubs against his erection. Jack moves back to drag kisses along her stomach, thumbing her breasts in lazy circles and flicks—the way she taught him—before sliding his hands down along her sides and over the flat of her belly to find the button of her jeans. Her hands are still in his hair, and his mouth is exploring her hips, but the zipper still slides down easy, and the denim catches only slightly on the set of her hips before he’s dragging it down, over her thighs and to her knees, and then Elsa is shifting her legs entirely so that she can be done with them once and for all.

Between her thighs Elsa is wet and warm, and it’s almost surreal, how natural it feels to slip a finger inside, to swallow her moan without ever breaking rhythm, to be here, honestly, at all.

Jack slides the panties from her hips without taking the time to properly appreciate them, then settles himself between her legs. Her fingers clench in his hair and reach for the legs of furniture nearby, and Jack allows himself a moment of pride as she roots herself in the feel of his tongue; as she spreads herself for him on the floor, shoulders and hips and head thrown back on hardwood. Jack lowers his head purposefully, feels the almost-painful twist of Elsa’s fingers in his hair, and presses his mouth to lick and suck and kiss, until sweat blurs his eyes and his lips are slick with come, until Elsa gasps his name with dizzying certainty, and in the end Jack presses his forehead to her thigh as he catches his breath, exhausted, but not completely spent.

Elsa still tastes like wine when he kisses her, salty with sweet, and it’s too soon for him to move too far, but they shift and roll their way over to the nest of blankets beyond the coffee table, and when Jack comes, he comes hard, with his swollen dick in Elsa’s mouth.

They fall asleep in a twisted pile of blankets, with Jack fingers splayed wide over her small shoulders, and Elsa’s hand pressed softly to his chest.

* * *

In the morning, Elsa cooks him heart-shaped pancakes with chocolate chips. Jack turns hers into smiley faces.

They eat their breakfast, and take a practical shower, and only get soap in each other’s eyes once. Elsa dresses in simple casual wear and Jack puts his dirty clothes back on, and Elsa laughs and Jack smiles, and for once, Jack drinks coffee even if he can’t stand the bitter taste. Jack helps her clean, and she kisses him while he folds blankets, and she bats him away when he tickles her, and holds him, and smiles at him, and thanks him for the night.

And then Jack leaves.

 


End file.
